“I’ve got to go find Carrie and make sure she’s okay. I told her to wait for me at the police station on the pier.”
“Smart. Who knows how many tentacles David has out around here. You go to her, and I’ll find a phone. As soon as I can get ahold of Kyle, we’ll be back for you and we’ll go find Tarter.”
“Okay. After I know she’s safe, I’ll come back to the Shore Hotel. It should be just around the corner from here.”
Sam stepped forward and gave Xander a hug.
“Be careful. Who knows if he is watching. Hurry and get to the hotel. No getting sidetracked. I’ll make sure it’s clear for you to come back to. I would imagine it’s possible that I’ll find more of his men there if it’s that close to here.”
Xander nodded.
“That’s why I didn’t send Carrie there, or anywhere else. I couldn’t take that chance.”
“All right. I’ll see you in a few.”
Sam walked down the hall and out the back door. Xander opened the front door and scanned the area right outside. It was eerily quiet. The only sounds were police sirens in the distance. Everyone else was either evacuated or holed up in their houses. Xander walked down the front stairs toward Ocean Avenue, the lights of the pier just on the other side. And hopefully, the girl he had sent there in haste.
42
Gone Fishing
Xander crossed the empty street and made his way toward the arch that announced to everyone that they had made it to the Santa Monica Pier. Usually at this time of night, the pier would be bustling: tourists jockeying for position, vendors selling cheap trinkets, and the smell of hot dogs, churros, and body odor hanging in the air. But not tonight. Xander only found one thing as he walked toward the pier, and he didn’t like the look of it one bit. Up ahead, there were two black vans, still running, pulled in sideways like they’d arrived in a hurry. He stalked up behind the radiating red taillights, holding his gun at the ready, but both vans were empty. He checked the side of the van, and it looked as if something had recently been removed. There was a large square, still sticky from whatever had clung to it before. Someone was in a hurry, and judging by the missing logo, they hadn’t wanted to stand out either.
There was zero movement ahead of him on the pier. The parking lot on his left was mostly empty. All the lights of the pier were still on display against the black backdrop of night, but no children were playing, and no music was playing across the speaker system. The only sounds Xander heard were the waves coming to shore and the occasional call of a seagull. Remaining crouched, Xander moved forward. He had hoped to see movement at least around the police station, but again there was nothing. He imagined most of them were out setting a perimeter with roadblocks. He didn’t know if lack of commotion was a good or a bad thing when it came to the two running vans.
A bright sign for Bubba Gump Shrimp flashed on his right, and he could see the entrance to the police station on his left. There was a light on inside, but again no movement. He sprinted the twenty feet to the other side of the pier, the police station just in front of him now. He crouched and tuned his ears to see if he could gather anything at all. He could see the front desk of the police station through the window, and now he knew something was wrong. There was no one there. Someone was always there.
He moved the ten feet in front of him, AR-15 at the ready, and glanced inside the station. When he found nothing, he slowly opened the glass door and stepped inside.
Silence.
He moved toward the front desk, and there on the other side, on the floor, was a man in uniform surrounded by a puddle of blood. Xander turned and went right back out the door. There was no need to investigate further. Carrie wasn’t going to be there. She was in trouble. He ran to the edge of the station building and bent his head around the edge, looking down the long walkway of the pier. Down just past where the roller coaster would be on the left, a shadow moved across an opening between vendor stands. And then another.
They were looking for Carrie.
They must have seen her crossing the street earlier.
Xander surged forward, stopping for a moment behind Pier Burger, then continuing to the end of the patio outside the arcade. He could hear the music from the idle games inside. It gave him an eerie feeling being out there in the dark as these grown men were chasing after Carrie. He felt like he had been dropped right into a horror movie scene. All that was missing was some sort of mechanical clown laughing at him. That thought gave him an idea.
Xander was outnumbered, and outgunned, so he needed to level the playing field. He needed to cut the power to the pier. If there was complete darkness, it would be easier for him to move in unseen. It would also be easier for Carrie to stay hidden. He turned and backtracked to the police station. It made sense to him that they would want the power close to the station if there was an emergency. He was right. On the back side of the building, there were four massive power boxes. Xander moved in, went to pull the first lever, but of course it was locked.
Sirens began to wail off in the distance. Sam must have called in reinforcements. This was actually a bad thing. Xander felt like this might hurry David, causing him to make a rash decision. These types of situations were very delicate, and SWAT teams weren’t normally known for their delicate touch.
Xander looked around at the surrounding vendors but saw nothing that would help him bust the locks on the power levers. No matter what he did now, it was going to make a noise. And they were going to know someone was moving on them anyway once the power shut off. So Xander glanced down at the twelve-gauge shotgun strapped around his shoulder and did what any red-blooded American man would do in that situation.
Blow shit up.
He took five steps back from the power boxes, shouldered the AR-15, took the shotgun in his hands, and racked the slide.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Four shots later, the power all around the pier shut off, leaving him in almost total darkness. Xander dropped the spent shotgun and readied the AR-15.
Once again, Xander was about to ruin David Tarter and Jonathan Haag’s fun.
43
Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
The black Tahoe screeched to a stop, and before it could settle, Kyle was already out of the driver’s side and running around the front end.
“Sam! Sam, you’re okay!”
Kyle ran up to her, grabbed her, and lifted her in a bear hug. He immediately put her down gently when she audibly winced. He was frantic.
“Are you okay? Sorry, I didn’t know . . . your leg! Were you shot? I was afraid that was your blood in the hotel room. What—”
“Kyle, please. Calm down. I’m all right. Just not as mobile as I would like to be.”
“Okay. Good.” Kyle was relieved. “Where’s X?”
Sam nodded in the direction of the pier across the street, when suddenly they heard four loud bangs and all the lights went out.
“What the hell is he doing over there?”
“He somehow got us out of a basement—”
Kyle broke in. “Us? You mean, you and him?”
“And the young girl.”
“You found her?”
“Yes, Kyle. But this will have to wait. Xander is over there right now. He was going to get her at the police station, but judging by the gunshots and loss of power, he must have run into a complication.”
“Okay,” Kyle said. “David just sent us on a wild-goose chase to some car repair shop. The place was empty when we got there. If you hadn’t called, we’d still be wandering the streets with no direction.”
Zhanna walked up. “But now we are here. Let’s get over to pier and help Xander.”
“Right,” Sam said. She moved into mission-control mode. “Zhanna, you and Kyle take some weapons and get over there. Jack, you and I will go to the top of this hotel. Since I won’t be much help for Xander on the ground, I’ll keep you safe while you get their back with your sniper rifle. Remember what Xander said, Kyle. If Tarter
and some of his men are down there, they could be well trained like Xander. So be careful. And Xander is down there as well, so don’t go in half-cocked and shoot him. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“All right, go on then. Let’s end this thing before the girl gets hurt. If we’re not already too late.”
Kyle’s phone began to ring.
“It’s Marv, you want it?”
Sam took the phone from him.
“Marv, please tell me you found Tarter.”
“Sam! You’re okay!”
“Marv.”
“No, we haven’t. But my team has been combing security cameras and they found two of the vans we were looking for. They stopped behind a strip mall and removed the logos. But we tracked them through various cameras and they stopped at the Santa Monica Pier. We could only see their backs as they got out of the vans, but we think it is David and his men.”
“Yeah, we were afraid of that.”
“You saw the power go out?” Marv said.
“Just now.”
“Well, that was Xander.”
“Marv, I’m going to need you to tell me something I don’t know.”
“There are seven men on the pier. And they are heavily armed.”
“How heavily.”
“One of them has a rocket launcher.”
“Christ.” Sam took the phone from her ear. “Jack, get to the roof ASAP. Xander is down there in a war zone.”
Jack moved immediately, his bagged sniper rifle over his shoulder.
“That’s not all, Sam.”
“Let me guess, the men are after the girl. Right, Xander freed her just a few minutes ago from the basement we were thrown into. Like I said, tell me something I don’t know.”
“The last camera that picked her up had her running out of the police station. So the last we saw her, she was safe.”
“But Xander isn’t. We’re on it.”
“Wait, Sam,” Marv said. “There’s one more thing. There were two girls brought in from Mexico on Francisco’s plane.”
“Two? Where is the other? We only found one.”
“They already delivered her. We were too late.”
Sam let that settle in for a moment. A young girl had just been sold to a wealthy man as a sex slave. This would break Xander’s heart. And even though it wasn’t his fault, he would consider it as happening on his watch. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. Xander and the girl they did know about were in danger. And Sam wasn’t going to let anything happen to them.
“Find out what you can about the man they sold her to, Marv. We’ll deal with him later. Right now, get men to the pier.”
“They’re already on their way.”
44
Identity Thief
Xander remained crouched beside the now-ruined electrical boxes. It was nearly pitch black around the corner where the pier jutted out over the water. Only the light casting from the city behind him allowed for some visibility. It surprised him when the lights also went out on the Ferris wheel. He had heard somewhere that it was the world’s only solar-powered wheel. It must have had some sort of fail-safe that shuts it down when the power goes out. It was a bit of a blessing, as it would allow him to stay more easily in the shadows. His body wanted to go right then and jump right into the fray, but he had to start thinking like Tarter. Tactically, they were similarly trained. The split-off would be that David was also a sociopath, so Xander would have to work accordingly.
If he were Tarter and he heard gunshots that shut down the power, he would send a scout. Depending on how many men he had with him, maybe two scouts. Xander was already at a massive disadvantage in the situation, but not knowing how many men there were was almost crippling. This would mean he would have to be patient, and for Xander patience was not a virtue.
As he waited, crouched to one knee, hiding behind a temporary wall of one of the vendors—hot dogs, by the smell of it—the sirens were closing in. While he would gladly have welcomed backup, he needed his people. They would show the finesse that this situation needed. Xander duckwalked over to the other side of the vendor stand and took a look behind him back toward Santa Monica. The police cars, several of them, had made it to the mouth of the pier. If he could, he would radio to them to stay back, but he had no way of doing so.
It was then that something screamed through the air beside him, and a second later, the entrance to the pier exploded in a fiery blaze. The sound that traveled by him was unmistakable. It was a rocket, launched by one of David’s crew. And it did its job of making sure the police would have to take the long route along the beach to reach him. Another rocket screamed past Xander’s position, and this time it was much worse. The rocket blasted into the police cruiser at the front, sending off a chain reaction of explosions. Tarter had zero morality. He cared nothing about his fellow man. Not even men who served like he had. Especially since his little operation was burnt. He was now a wild animal backed into a corner. He would be willing to do anything to get out.
It was time Xander adopted some of David Tarter’s morality.
It was time to get dirty.
Xander turned back to the other side of the hot dog stand, and sure enough, he caught a glimpse of a shadow moving in between the buildings on the shore side of the pier.
The scout.
Xander moved quickly down the pier, and just as he got to the arcade, a man in tactical gear and a black baseball cap rushed right by him. He was too focused on where he was going and didn’t see Xander. Xander mirrored his footsteps and fell in behind him. He took three longer and quicker strides, and before the man could register someone behind him, Xander jumped forward and wrapped the shoulder strap of his AR-15 around the man’s neck, then pulled him down on top of him as he fell to his back. He wrapped his legs around the man’s waist, holding him in place, then slid his arm under the man’s chin. The rear naked choke was a silent killer, and silence was paramount to keeping his position on the pier a secret from Tarter and the rest of his men.
Xander squeezed like an anaconda. The man was large, but position and technique were all that mattered in jujitsu. He choked the man unconscious, then, with a violent twist of his neck, made sure the man wouldn’t be coming back to haunt him. To Xander’s delight, the man had an extra magazine for the AR-15 and a tactical knife. A Ka-Bar, to be specific. Xander knew it well. The knife was a staple with his brothers in the marines. He unstrapped the sheath and fastened it to his own belt. Now he could kill silently if the opportunity arose.
He could hear more police pulling up to the fiery scene behind him. He needed Sam. Together it would be tough to bring these guys down. Without her, Xander was staring at odds that weren’t in his favor. But he couldn’t let that stop him. Because if his odds were bad, Carrie’s odds of surviving these men without him were insurmountable. The last thing he did before moving on was take the dead man’s earpiece and his hat. If Vegas were watching, they would have upped his odds a bit with that move.
With the knife strapped to his side and the semiautomatic rifle in his hands, he moved forward. He could hear a helicopter in the distance. But he knew they wouldn’t engage. By now Marv would have been able to inform everyone what was going on out there. That there was a girl in danger. SWAT would be moving onto the beach soon, then climbing in behind him onto the pier. Tarter would be ready for them. Xander’s only hope was that Tarter wouldn’t be ready for him.
Xander moved around the winding metal of the roller coaster’s frame. Up ahead of him was the iconic Ferris wheel. Beyond that the pier narrowed on his right and extended out over the ocean, the harbor office and a large restaurant the only things at its end. Since he couldn’t see anyone at the moment, he figured they were searching for her there. Getting there for Xander would be the most dangerous part. The section of the pier that led to that end gave him nowhere to hide, no buildings for cover. If he were Tarter, he would most certainly have had someone watching.
“What do you see, Thompso
n?” a man’s voice came through his commandeered earpiece.
The man he’d just killed—Thompson—was a big man, and he looked dumb. So Xander did the best big dumb guy voice he could muster. “All clear. Heading back.”
“Roger.”
The man in the earpiece bought it. He now had a clear run at getting across the empty section of the pier. However, he knew that nothing short of war waited on the other side.
45
A Real Kick in the Teeth
Kyle pulled Zhanna back away from the blazing fire.
“Are you okay? Zhanna, are you all right?”
He pulled her into his lap. She was dazed, but she seemed to be coming around.
Sam came in through his earpiece. “Are the two of you all right?”
“Barely. If that rocket, or missile, or whatever the hell it was would have come a second later, we’d be dead.” Kyle sat Zhanna up and held her there. “You okay?”
“I think so,” Zhanna finally responded. “What the hell happened?”
“Marv said they had a rocket launcher, I guess they decided to use it.”
Kyle stood and helped Zhanna to her feet. The fire at the mouth of the pier continued to blaze, and the police cars to their left were in shambles. Kyle’s ears were ringing from the explosion. More police cars were coming down the street, so he pulled Zhanna toward the stairs down to the beach. He had left his CIA credentials back in the truck, and he didn’t have time to explain to the police just what in the hell he and a beautiful Russian were doing at the scene of a domestic terrorist attack. With weapons.
Kyle had been to the Santa Monica Pier several times, so he knew there was an alternate set of stairs on the sides that they could use to get back onto the pier. He pointed this out to Zhanna, and the two of them resumed making their way to Xander.
King's Reign (The Xander King Series Book 4) Page 20
